New tool to help create a banner in MOLE

Within MOLE you can personalise your page by adding a banner to it. 

Creating a banner can be an unfamiliar task to some who haven’t had too much experience of editing images.

We’ve simplified this process by providing a banner creation tool in the MOLE help guides. This allows you to choose an image and easily drop it into the banner space. When you save the image it will be the appropriate size for a MOLE banner.

Pixabay is a good source for copyright free images.

The MOLE help pages also provides more information on adding a banner in MOLE.

Inspiring our global learning community

FutureLearn Learner Stories is a collection of personal experiences from a handful of the 5,000,000 FutureLearners from across the world. We’re very happy to recently read of Rachel from Cornwall who, following being made unemployed, took our two courses from the Careers Service - How to Succeed at: Writing Applications and Interviews and found they significantly improved her job-finding skills.

“Being out of work for so long can be very frustrating and disheartening. I attended 26 interviews with no success and could not understand why. I found the Job Centre’s application and interview advice dated and it did not seem to help me. The FutureLearn courses were very impressive, well put together and from reputable universities with up to date tips and latest trends. I attended 3 interviews after completing the courses and they went a lot better than the previous ones”.

You can read Rachel's full story on the FutureLearn Learner Stories site.

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Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, two academics from our Crime, Justice and Society course, Professor Claire McGourlay and Dr Matthew Bacon, recently spoke at the American Society of Criminology Conference where they met Renan, who is an undergraduate from the Federal University of Penambuco in Brazil. He had been a learner on the course and it had inspired him to attend Professor McGourlay and Dr Bacon’s sessions, as well as hunt them down for a photo afterwards. We’ve even heard he is considering taking a postgraduate degree in Sheffield and, if he makes it, we look forward to meeting him.

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Finally, our course on The Musculoskeletal System was celebrated by the MRC-Arthritis UK Centre for Integrated Research into Musculoskeletal Ageing (CIMA) in a recent blog post. The centre, which is part of the Universities of Liverpool, Sheffield and Newcastle University, developed the course with Sheffield’s Online Learning Team to showcase their groundbreaking research and raise awareness of musculoskeletal ageing conditions and how the effects of ageing can be mitigated.
We’ve had some great feedback from this course, both from individuals and in terms of the learner demographics, but nothing quite speaks to its success as this comment from Maria on FutureLearn…

“I very much appreciate the construction of the course: each week came with a logical build up of approaches intermingled with opportunities to give our own views. It's the first MOOC I have done compiled by three universities, which gave us, the participating audience, the latest specialised researched insights from three institutions.

So, to the whole team: great cooperation in compiling this worthwhile course which for me, will be life changing since it brought home to me how profound the impact is of exercise, activity and balanced diet for healthier longevity. Not only is it changing my life, I have since recommended the course to my Healthy Walks Coordinator and am helping a member of my family in realising the profound reasons for adopting a healthier lifestyle.”

New PebblePad collaboration tool

A regular problem people have come across with PebblePad was when two or more lecturers wanted to work on the same Workbook or other Resource. Unless all parties were working using the same departmental account (which isn't always possible or desirable to do), there was no easy way to do this.

Today (5th December) a new feature has launched in v5 which allows collaborative items - both Resources and Assets - to be shared. To do this share the item in the normal way ('I want to...' > 'Share' > 'With People') and ensure the 'Collaboration' box is ticked (as in the screenshot left). The other user will get a notification it has been shared via email, and will be able to make their own additions and changes. If another user is editing at the time, it will be locked until the other user logs out or times out.

This also solves the problem of when staff members leave and their PebblePad accounts will no longer be accessible - they just need to ensure they share the material with colleagues to collaborate on before they leave (although it may still be advisable to have the material accessible from a departmental account, rather than just individual accounts). It also allows for students to collaborate on Portfolios or other Assets.

This is another much called-for new feature in PebblePad which shows they're listening to feedback, and demonstrates v5's agility in being able to deliver improvements to the system that were never implemented in v3. If you give collaborations a go please get in touch and let us know how you get on.

Pete